Anthem for Diffuse Territories

‘Anthem for Diffuse Territories’, is the first of my trilogy of pieces in response to the 1916 Rising (Easter Rising), its centenary, and the associated Decade of Centenaries surrounding the establishment of (the Republic of) Ireland and Northern Ireland as separate political entities. The piece takes as its reference point the early 1960s RTE broadcast version of the Irish national anthem (as arranged by the Anglo-Irish composer Brian Boydell). The musical processes within the piece seek to reshape the traditional brassy bombast of the national anthem into muted timbres, environmental sounds and diffuse drones, suggesting an alternative reality of Ireland as an idea at the centre of diverse networks of migration rather than a singular nation–state. The piece was premiered in Dublin on the evening before the centenary of the Easter Rising. The composition also embeds a collaborative element in the shape of an opening performance of 'Manifesto for a New Ireland' by writer and actor Paul Moore (AnNua Productions). ‘Manifesto’ is an extract from the play 'Home', premiered in Liverpool in 2015 (Jo Mackin Theatre). In a similar fashion to 'Anthem for Diffuse Territories', 'Manifesto for a New Ireland' imagines an Ireland beyond the traditional binary oppositions of nationalism. The complete multichannel version of ‘Anthem for Diffuse Territories’ and introductory performance of 'Manifesto for a New Ireland' was premiered at Ideopreneural Entrephonics II by the Spatial Music Collective at the Freemasons’ Hall, Dublin, April 23rd, 2016 and was subsequently performed at Listen | Compose | Perform (Association of Irish Composers), curated by Karen Power, 12 Henrietta Street, Dublin, June 3rd 2016.